Tag Archives: asking

Elevating your standards

I started getting all these awesome things once I didn’t want them anymore, once I was aiming for way bigger and better.

Elevating my standards forced me to elevate my own expectations of the work I do, and in turn it made me better, which made me expect even better things to happen.

When you expect you get given. Let me rephrase. You’re not given anything. You EARN them by the sheer force of expecting that they belong to you.

Planning and Intentions

That’s when everything changed…

A couple years back I started writing down my goals on paper. My plans were different back then, but literally hours after writing something down opportunities opened up for me that were previously just a far away wish.

That’s the power of planning and visualization. Turns wishes into reality.

See most of us are so caught up in going with the flow of things, trying to avoid bumps, that we don’t see opportunity right there next to us. We’re so busy just wishing, that we don’t give ourselves time to plan and expect those same things.

That grant for new business startups is rightfully ours, if we write it down as a goal and confidently claim it we’ll have it no time. That VP position at your company is rightfully yours, have you put it on paper and asked for it?

How about your sexy/smart neighbor? The one you talk to in the elevator every saturday but never invited over for wine and conversation. That’s yours too if you admit it to yourself and make plans to show them what you’re all about.

Don’t confuse activity with progress. Wishing and doing the usual is not gonna get you where you deserve to be. Writing your goal down on paper takes some work and concentration, and it’s the launching pad for getting there.

Let me break it to you and tell you that your plan won’t work out how you draw it out to be. But when you have a focus and clear idea of what you desire you have given yourself the confidence to steer.

You’re on a train going somewhere but now you know what stop you need to get off at. That piece of paper reminds you where you’re going even when the path is dark. Here’s your flashlight.

(Thanks to Zig Ziglar, truly a great man.)

The Blame Game

One of my main faults is comparing my standards to those of others.  Almost as if I’m checking to make sure I’m not asking for too much. Blaming myself whenever my peers are happy with half as much.

That’s the fastest way to the bottom.

We all get beaten down by life. Not getting our way doesn’t make us fight harder for it, it just makes us anticipate less.

Plain sad.

It’s ok to ask for more than what others are asking for.  As long as you keep your morals and ethics just as high as what you’re expecting to receive then you’re on the right track. It increases your fighter cells and decreases your blame cells. A must if you’re going to beat the game.

Expectations

Whenever I’m feeling down or out of it I like to go back and watch this Tony Robbins video.  The gist of what he’s saying is that life will pay whatever price you ask of it.  The difference between the greats and the mediocre is that the greats ask more from life.

In order to truly, honestly, I-know-it’ll-come-surely ask more from life you have to first expect more from yourself.  THAT is the start of it all.  When you hold yourself to a higher standard and expect more from yourself that’s when you’ll start asking more from life, and life will reward you with what you ask of it.

For those who will counter with “well how does someone take that step towards expecting more from themselves?  Some people just have low confidence.”  The answer: expose yourself to the world and you’ll soon realize that you already possess most of the tools you need to achieve greatness.  All it takes is some fine-tuning of those tools that can only be done through experiencing new situations and dealing with anxiety.

These new situations will put you side by side with your peers and you’ll see you’re just as worthy as they are, if not more worthy.

In life the person who usually wins is the one who thinks he can.  That’s what my good friend Eric Garcia says.

So to recap: Expose-> Realize-> Expect-> Ask-> Receive.

That’s the formula. Plug in your own factors.